The Authenticity of Digital Currency

The prevalence of advice about budgeting and finances proves that they are an issue for many, many people. What's more interesting to me, however, is that many of these blog posts, books, and lectures focus on using the most authentic form of money, or what feels most real to people.

Have you all seen the cash envelope budgeting system?

E-how even has this page on the system

The idea is that people need concrete, "real" money separated out for their various bills in order to feel that they are spending. Credit cards, supporters of the system say, let you swipe a plastic card and walk away with products.

This system is funny to me, because I feel the complete opposite about the authenticity of money. I don't like spending money when I know the number in my bank account is going to go down. I don't always have cash, but when I do, it feels like free money. I can spend that cash, and there will be no trail of it, no record that I spent it, and my bank account won't change.

Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe cash feels more real to a generation where credit and debit cards weren't a common reality. My husband likes to joke about it and tell me that I should go get some lunch if I forget mine, because I have a magic blue card that I can swipe. I don't even have to give them any of my dollars. Ha.

But what do you all think? What form of currency feels most real to you?